By Pamela Fayerman
I’ve gotten severe food poisoning in Hawaii, Mexico and Thailand. On a holiday in Greece, I suffered a leg injury in a motorcycle accident. The best I can say about that calamity was that the reckless driver of the motorcycle (on which I was a passenger) was a New York emergency physician. So he tended to my injuries instead of taking me to a hospital.
Montezuma’s Revenge and mishaps do happen while ... Read More …

May 29. 2013 note to readers: The public database is now live. The news release can be read at the bottom of this post.
By Pamela Fayerman
Numerous countries around the world have websites where you can search for open or completed clinical trials on pharmaceutical or biomedical treatments. So if you’re a patient, for example, you can look for a credible trial in your geographical area to possibly enter. Or get information about safety ... Read More …

May 28, 2013 note to readers: a metered system has now been introduced for blogs. But you can still get around them by accessing posts on social media sites. So if you’re averse to being a digital subscriber (and I wish that weren’t so) I invite you to follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/MedicineMatters
By Pamela Fayerman
On the third anniversary of my MedicineMatters blog, it seems like a good time to share what may be ... Read More …

Rare is the occasion when a medical leader sticks out his neck to take on the establishment. But that’s what Dr. Louis Francescutti has done in a surprisingly bold interview in which he criticizes doctors for putting their sense of entitlement ahead of the concerns of patients. At the bottom of this post, you can read the text of the full interview from canadianhealthcarenetwork.ca (the online home of The Medical Post). But I’ve summed ... Read More …

BY PAMELA FAYERMAN
American doctors are keen about working in Canada not only because malpractice premiums are lower here, they are also subsidized by taxpayers.
Canadian doctors have negotiated sweet deals with provincial governments so that taxpayers subsidize either all (Saskatchewan) or part of their membership dues in the organization (Canadian Medical Protective Association) that covers their legal defence when they are sued by patients or charged with crimes.
In B.C., the government ... Read More …

People who go to countries like India and then need medical treatment or those who go there seeking faster, cheaper surgery risk dire consequences to their own health. They also may put the general public at risk if they return home with antibiotic-resistant, emerging infections. That is what’s believed to be the case in Edmonton where one hospital patient has died and 300 have been screened for the New Delhi superbug so far. Click ... Read More …

Canada is increasingly a more appealing workplace for U.S. doctors, according to a recent article in The Medical Post. That article led to another in the National Post about Canada being regarded as “the number one spot in the world for doctors to come and work, live and play.”
John Mabbott, the executive director of HealthMatch B.C., the government-funded health professional recruitment agency, acknowledges that while there hasn’t exactly been a “flood” of doctors from ... Read More …

It’s unusual to hear about medical doctors who take mega-doses of vitamins and other complementary or alternative therapies. So I was rather intrigued to hear about Dr. Gillian Arsenault and her use of high doses of vitamin D in combination with elderberry syrup when she got H1N1, the pandemic influenza.
Arsenault is a public health official in the Fraser Health region which makes it perhaps even more interesting. In my story about her (click ... Read More …